Thursday, February 13, 2014

FSF: Strength

Strength wasn’t optional in Aurora’s world, and it never had
been. She grew up in a government-run
orphanage, having been born to parents who couldn’t even hold jobs to support
themselves, let alone a child.

A lack of education, while cruel and restrictive to her
prospects now, didn’t feel quite so awful as the total lack of love she had
growing up. The hot sting of whips on
tender flesh represented the sole source of human contact she experienced until
she was sixteen.

Aurora reflected on these things briefly as she stepped up
to the auction block, crowding up against a number of thin, trembling bodies,
and waited for the bidding to begin.